Removable Wallpaper: The Final Report

A few years ago I put up “removable wallpaper” in my entry way and hallway. It’s also known as “renter’s wallpaper” or “temporary wallpaper.” When I was researching it I was promised it would come right off and you just had to wipe the wall with a damp cloth and you wouldn’t even have to repaint it. A lot of people were interested in this so I thought I would do a follow up post since we removed it before we moved. If you are looking for information about where to get removable wallpaper and where we got ours please refer to this post.

Taking it down was sad just because it was the end of an era. (Plus remembering all that work it was to put it up!) The wallpaper came right off. I pulled it all down in less than ten minutes (a friend called dibs on the used stuff) There were light marks left on the walls from the glue (you can see them in the fourth picture.) so I took a damp sponge to the wall. It did make a slight difference but there were still very clear glue marks left. And the walls definitely needed a new coat of paint to get it back to normal. (Though not as much coverage as if you were covering up a solid color.)

After you’ve read this post, if you still have questions please put them in the comment section below and I’ll try to answer them.

Yeah, from what I've heard even "regular" wallpaper comes off pretty easy these days. That said I think this kind is more temporary. Occasionally a strip would peel if it was in an area that could touched a lot and I would have to stick it back up.

so fun/sad to see it come down so easily! i can relate to your feelings and the look in your faces in that cute picture of you two hugging. we had to paint over my chevron wall that i painted when we just left Dubai and it was so sad to see it gone. hope all is well!

Oh this is a fabulous idea! Sometimes it's rough living in apartment and finding ways to decorate your home in reversible ways. Now…if there was only a way to temporarily fix my kitchen counters and cabinets…

Thank you for going full-circle with this, all too often the touted temporary solutions are only with a promise of easy/damage free removal. I too would love to see how well the paper can be reused (my second qualm about various temporary decorating – one-time use).